14th Amendment Essay

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The Fourteenth Amendment: Is it too late now to say sorry? The Reconstruction Era, 1865 to 1877, was a period marked by a number of overridden President Johnson vetoes and a push for establishing basic rights and citizenship for African Americans. Along with this period of change came three new Amendments—the Thirteenth, the Fourteenth and the Fifteenth—which secured the rights of recently emancipated slaves. The Fourteenth Amendment was directed at the states to recognize and protect life, liberty and property and the rights outlined in the Bill of Rights. It transferred the federal power to the states, but also gave the federal government the right to oversee the states and enforce the Amendment. The most significant part, section one, …show more content…

Foremost, the framers wrote the amendment in a general sense so they would not leave out whatever they could not think of. They wanted future readers and the government to be able to interpret it in this same way and expected all the states to willingly and readily enforce it. The amendment was ultimately a reaction to black codes, legal repression and violence, particularly in the South. However, the Republicans, who made up most of the 39th Congress, also wanted to keep their party strong by agreeing on a majority opinion while distancing themselves from President Johnson. As Eric Foner, an expert historian in Reconstruction, says: The aims of the 14th Amendment can only be understood within the political and ideological context of 1866: the break with the President, the need to find a measure upon which all Republicans could unite, and the growing consensus within the party around the need for strong federal action to protect the freedmen’s rights, short of the …show more content…

WHAT AM I ARGUING COMPLICATE THIS SENTENCE. A quote from an Ohio newspaper, the Cincinnati Enquirer, reads: “Slavery is dead, the negro is not. There is the misfortune. For the sake of all the parties, would that he were.” There were people in the North, mostly Democrats, who viewed the amendment and the incorporation of rights of blacks in society as a detrimental burden. ADD SOME STUFF HERE. When discussing African Americans and their rights, President Johnson

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